Dear Frozen in Austin,While Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day is strictly optional and looking about the garden may be painful and disheartening now after the freezing temperatures, I think you should go ahead and look for blooms on bloom day and write a post about them. Someday, when you are facing yet another hot summer day, you will want to look back and remember. Really, you will.

Hortense

Dear Hortense,

Will bloom day every end?

Sincerly, Faithful Flower Follower

Dear Faithful,

An end to bloom day? Well, I don't think now is a good time to stop this tradition because January 2010 marks the end of Year 3. Who stops at the end? Oh, wait, check that. Doesn't February 2010 seem like a good place to start another year of bloom day posts? Sure it does. But before we start at a new beginning, we have to wrap up Year 3 with our January posts. Then bloom day will keep on going for another year.

Sincerely,
Hortense

Dear Hortense,

Can anyone post for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day?

PW

Dear PW,

Yes, anyone and everyone is welcome to post about their blooms on the 15th of the month for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. There is no excuse not to, even if your blog isn't strictly about gardening. Something blooms for everyone, every month. Sometimes we just have to look a little harder for those blooms. But they are there, and there's no reason not to share them with everyone,

Do blooms atop cut flowers purchased at a market count? What about annuals purchased at a nursery and plunked into the ground for no other reason than there be nary a true bloom to celebrate on Bloom Day?

I should think that buds do indeed count, as do purchased blooms -- they are available, so they're blooms. Indoor plants count. What I won't be showing is dead stuff. It's Bloom Day, not frozen plants day.

I had hoped that buds of Camellias would open by the 15th, but they're tight against the cold. They'll have to wait another month.

Gardeners are a sturdy lot. We'll find something, somewhere to show hope for the coming spring.

I remember my very first bloom day when I wondered whether buds counted and was assured that they did! Now I'm wondering whether withering blooms count, but I know there is always something. Frost flowers at least.